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Prospecting for gold can dig up issues of property rights

By Karen AugéThe Denver Post

Posted:
11/27/2012 12:01:00 AM MST

Updated:
11/27/2012 09:25:35 AM MST

Bill Chapman, former owner of Gold-N-Detectors in Golden, demonstrates gold-panning techniques inside the shop last week. Chapman, who runs a prospecting club that averages about 90 to 100 people at its monthly meetings, said his hobby isn't one for people looking to get rich. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

(The Denver Post)

Everyone knows the story of gold mining in Colorado — fortune-hunting ruffians working claims with pickaxes, guarding them with pistols and throwing back whiskey in mud-splattered mountain towns that sprang up, thrived and died as fast as a Black Friday line outside a Best Buy. And it was all over with about 120 years ago.

That last part? Well, not so much, it turns out.

Propelled by no fewer than four Discovery Channel shows dedicated to prospecting — and by gold prices around $1,600 or more an ounce — weekend placers (that's what they call themselves) have been packing up their pans and sluices lately and wading into the state's rivers and streams in numbers not seen in any living person's memory.

Vic's Gold Panning has been outfitting tourist prospectors for decades, but these days it has plenty of competition. Prospecting clubs are sprouting up and down the Front Range, according to Bill Chapman, former owner of Gold-N-Detectors in — where else? — Golden. His club averages about 90 to 100 people at its monthly meetings.

The Gold Prospectors Association of America — which, according to its website, has been providing members "with all the tools needed to find gold" since 1968 — lists eight Colorado counties loaded with riches.

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Larimer isn't one of them.

Nevertheless, in recent months, Rieves' staff has reported bumping into more and more recreational prospectors — and even what he called "midgrade gold-seekers with gas-powered water pumps."

That is why the county is considering adding, for a while at least, minerals to the list of things people can't harvest from county property. That list already includes American Indian artifacts and some vegetation.

The proposal, which the Larimer County Commissioners are expected to consider next month, has generated a lot of backlash in placer circles.

But it is not a ban, Rieves said. He characterized it as more of a timeout, while county parks-and-wildlife managers and lawyers put their heads together and figure out who has mineral rights to what and where.

"Our concern is not the recreational gold panning — that's no more disruptive to the environment than a guy fishing," Rieves said. "The concern is that we have a patchwork of properties that we manage on someone else's behalf. The can of worms for us is the mineral rights."

Mineral rights can, indeed, be a can of worms, according to Murray Hitzman, a geologist who teaches courses on mineral deposits at the Colorado School of Mines.

"On federal land or national forest land, the mineral rights would be owned by the federal government," Hitzman said.

But in nonwilderness public areas, it is legal for an individual to stake a claim.

On private property, though, it's not just a matter of figuring out who owns the property, Hitzman said. There's also the issue of who owns mineral rights to that property, and often the two have been separated, he said.

"My guess is most recreational panners are not even bothering with that," he said. "For somebody who goes out on weekends and takes a pan, probably no one is going to worry."

That's because, for the most part, what weekend panners are pulling out of Colorado streams are "tiny gold flakes," Hitzman said. "To get enough to make an ounce, that's a lot of work."

Chapman, who sold his store and insists he is retired even though he answered the phone at Gold-N-Detectors the day before Thanksgiving, said his hobby isn't one for people looking to get rich.

"In an afternoon, I can always come up with $20 worth of gold, but it is work, and I am old," he said.

On the other hand, getting outfitted for recreational gold panning will set you back about $50, and there's a good chance you'll recoup that investment, Chapman said.

Just try to tell yourself the same thing as you invest in new skis and a season lift pass.

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